To Infinity And Beyond!

Just a quick note to let folks know that the setlist for tonight’s Infinity Hall Live taping at the intimate and lovely Inifnity Music Hall in Norfolk, CT has been posted in the Tour section. The setlist was very similar to that for the NPR webcast as Tori as again joined by the string octet (which she introduced as, if I remember correctly, “The Jammin’ Groovin’ Octet”). The songs with accompaniment by the octet were the same but there were a few changes for the solo songs.

The date that this episode of Infinity Hall Live will be aired is not known yet but the host of the evening announced from the stage before the performance that it would be part of the show’s second season which is slated to start in June 2013. So, we’ll have a little bit of a wait before we all get the chance to see it.

If you were there and would like to share your impression of the evening with Undented’s readership, we’d love to have to hear from you! The comment form at the bottom of the page for the show is your friend and ours!

Drowned In Sound Interview (October 7, 2012)

I realised I needed to have inspiration from more complex works so that I was growing and that my rhythm vocabulary was growing, the melodic vocabulary was growing, the chord progression vocabulary… so you’re not making choices just because that’s all you’ve got in your arsenal.

In an interview for the music webzine Drowned in Sound, Cate Blanche chatted with Tori about some of the usual topics such as the new record Gold Dust and the interrelationships between the new album and her other recent work, including Night of Hunters and The Light Princess but they also tread on some less-trampled ground such as the early gigs in and around London before Little Earthquakes broke and the conscious decision to challenge herself as her career continues. And, as the interview’s headline indicates, Tori sets the record straight on confessional songwriting.

Thanks to @EarWithFeet for the tip on this good read.

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Tori Joins Nemone In The Record Exchange

This past Sunday morning, October 7th, Tori joined Nemone for the Record Exchange, a regular segment on her BBC 6 Music radio program where the she and her guest pick out a song for each other and have a little chat about the songs. As the interview was pre-recorded, the conversation centered on the then upcoming show at Royal Albert Hall, the new record and, as you can see in the picture to the right, Tori’s heels. As for the songs, Nemone picked “Diablo Rojo” by Rodrigo Y Gabriela while Tori went with Don McLean’s “American Pie,” thinking about the upcoming election in the States.

If you missed it, slept through it (like we did) or just want to listen to it again, the program is available on-demand on the BBC iPlayer through next Sunday. The segment with Tori start just after the 2 hour point.

Guardian Interview (October 5, 2012)

Parenting is not for everybody. It changes your life. Especially when they’re little. If you think a child is going to be your accessory … it’s not like a micro pig. It’s not about putting them in front of the television. You need to read to them at night.

Tori’s addition to The Guardian’s My family values series was posted on Friday. Not so much an interview as a collection of her thoughts on family, both the one she came from and the one she’s created, it’s a revealing read.

Thanks to mkgtweety for the link!

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Rolling Stone Interview (October 5, 2012)

Working with the masters – the dead guys – is informing the musical. Living in those kinds of structures made me realize composition possibilities again, looking at it in a new way. The musical has changed and transformed in the last six months in ways I would have never believed.

Rolling Stone’s Jillian Mapes reports on Tori’s next project: completing The Light Princess musical. Addressing the delays with the confirmation that the musical has to be “better than good,” Tori also talks about how her work on Night of Hunters has changed the music she has written and continues to refine for The Light Princess. The hope for an announcement about the musical’s premiere in 2013 remains. Our fingers remain crossed!

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Glamour Interview (October 4, 2012)

You have to think about the art form. It’s not just opening the closet up and letting it all spill out. It’s opening the closet to start taking things out, and deciding how you want to show people, and to get them experiencing it. Because really, it’s not just about how you showing it yourself, it’s about engaging someone else to open up their closet of emotions.

In a rather lengthy interview for the UK magazine Glamour, Tori spoke to Jenny Selby about everything from Gold Dust to her relationship with England, her thoughts on the past, present and future women in the music industry to, the craft of song-writing, and, yes, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Thanks to RAOF for the tip on this unexpectedly great conversation!

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PopMatters Interview (October 3, 2012)

It’s a big catalogue and I wasn’t thinking about representation of albums. It wasn’t about a democracy. It was about songs as individuals as well. I could have made different choices, no question about it, but it was about narrative.

The cornerstone of PopMatters’ Performer Spotlight on Tori was Matt Mazur’s and Joe Vallese’s interview with her. Posted on Wednesday, the day after the release of Gold Dust in North America, the article deals almost exclusively with the new album, from origins to recording to touring. A most excellent feather in the cap that is the Performer Spotlight.

Speaking of which, make sure to check out the rest of the Spotlight which includes a slew of great articles, essays and lists. Here’s what was added in the second half of last week:

1. The Tori Amos Canon – Part 3: Collections
2. Tori Amos – “Blood Roses”
3. The Top 10 Tori Amos YouTube Moments
4. The Tori Amos Canon – Part 4: Companions
5. Reflections on Tori Amos and the Feminist Movement
6. Tori Amos – “Evolution of a Song: “Pancake”
7. The Top 10 Favorite Tori Amos Style Moments
8. The Tori Amos Canon – Part 5: Curios
9. On Tori’s Past—and Next: 20 Years Surviving the Music Industry
10. The Most Wanted Unreleased Tori Amos Music

There’s a good afternoon’s worth of reading there so cuddle up and down it all in one fell swoop!

Mopping Up The NPR Webcast

Update: Audio of last night’s webcast is now streaming at NPR Music. There’s also a nice slideshow of photographs by Ebru Yildiz and an article by Ann Powers to introduce performance.

Just got back home from (le) poisson rouge where Tori performed with a string octet this evening. The concert was webcast by NPR Music so, on the assumption that folks would be able to listen in live, we didn’t tweet the show — although Ann Powers, who introduced the performance and also interviewed Tori before the show, did. However, word is that many people had choppy audio/video so it is fortunate that NPR will be archiving this webcast, presumably along with that interview, in their Live in Concert in the next few days.

Jump the cut if you want to see the setlist — or hold off if you want to be surprised once the archive is available. It’s all about you, baby.

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Gawker's (Sort Of) Gold Dust Review

Over at Gawker, Rich Juzwiak reviews Gold Dust along with the full-length version of Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie in one fell swoop, calling both Tori and Tim, perhaps unfairly, “relics of ‘90s alternaculture.” He doesn’t hate the album, but he doesn’t love it either, saying “there are few surprises to be found.”

Soundi's Gold Dust Review

Finnish magazine Soundi reviews Gold Dust in its new issue. The bad news is, the whole review is in Finnish, and most of us don’t speak or read Finnish. The good news is, an anonymous birdie translated it for us. Click through the jump to read Petri Silas’ critical look at the collection.

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